


Syzygy

by Saathi1013



Series: Ephemerides [1]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Multi, Multiple Pairings, Other, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, POV Third Person Limited, Polyamory, Polyfidelity, Surprise Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 03:15:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/pseuds/Saathi1013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate retelling of Season 3, where one decision changes everything: Sam is sent to Pegasus to recover from his pneumonia, and Dee is left behind on New Caprica.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First story in a series; "Syzygy" covers the tail end ("One Year Later" portion) of 2x20 ("Lay Down Your Burdens: Part 2") through 3x09 ("Unfinished Business"). Each story will be self-contained enough to read without continuing to the next, if that's your cuppa.
> 
> Also: Dee haters to the left.

**ONE YEAR LATER**  
**NEW CAPRICA**

 

Dee's just finishing up her duty logs when the comm buzzes. "Commander's not here," she says, anticipating a call from the CIC or Galactica.

"Hey, Dee." Kara's voice answers her, faint and crackling over the surface relay.

"Hey," Dee says, smiling. "How are you?"

"I'm okay," Kara replies, and then there's a static-filled pause. "Sam's sick, though."

Dee processes this. "How bad?" she asks. Kara wouldn't call this late if it weren't a problem, but...

"Not sure. He says it seems worse than it is." Kara laughs, but Dee can hear the strain behind it, which tells her all she needs to know.

"Mail run's tomorrow; I'll catch a ride," Dee says, "Help you knock some sense into him, how's that?"

There's a soft sound, Kara smiling or sighing. "If Lee can spare you..." she says, token resistance.

"I'm coming," Dee says firmly, and that's that.

 

* * *

 

Lee makes half-hearted complaints about how Dee's gotten the last two turns planetside, but she pokes him in the side and laughs at him. She points out how the Commander of Pegasus can't very well go AWOL for a weekend to play medic, and he lets her go with a rueful shrug.

When Dee steps onto the Raptor, she spots the Tighs aboard. "Colonel; ma'am," she says, buckling in. "Looking forward to some R&R?"

"Not a vacation," he replies.

"The admiral's letting us settle," Mrs. Tigh explains with an enthused grin. "Isn't it great?" 

From the colonel's expression, the jury's still out on that, but Dee smiles at them anyway. "Well, good luck," she says, meaning it.

"Speaking of luck," the Colonel says, "You've got an anniversary coming up, don'tcha?"

Dee nods, but before she can respond, Mrs. Tigh cuts in. "Oh, congratulations! You know, there were some who bet against it lasting this long, with you and Lee –"

"Ellen," the colonel gruffs.

Dee keeps the smile fixed on her face. She's heard worse. "Adamas have a tendency to take the long odds," she responds, tamping back a pointed response about _troubled marriages._

"Ha," the colonel barks out a laugh. "That's for damn sure. Have you heard about the time..."

Dee gives him credit for his tact with relief and no small surprise, and the rest of the trip is spent trading scandalous Academy stories.

 

* * *

 

It's always a shock, after so long shipside, to step out into a space so bright and wide and _open._ Dee shields her eyes from the glare of the sky; even overcast (as it always seems to be) it's still brighter than she's accustomed to. She spots Kara, hovering at one side of the crowd, looking so weary and strained that Dee immediately hugs her tight without a word.

"I'm glad you're here," Kara breathes quietly into her collar before letting her go.

"What does the Doc say?" Dee asks as they start off down the road – more of a broad muddy lane, but it's been graded and there's no help for the muck, this early in the season. Dee's just glad she's in her civvies.

"Pneumonia," Kara says tightly, tucking her coat more closely around her. "Sam might pull through with rest, but he needs meds that we don't have and..." She's looking away, clearly unwilling to ask.

"He'd be better off on Pegasus, wouldn't he?" Dee fills in the rest.

"Dee, I can't ask you or Lee to look after him; I –"

Dee rolls her eyes. "Lords of Kobol, save me from air-headed Viper jocks. Of _course_ you can, what good is –"

" _Motherfrakker,_ " Kara spits, freezing in her tracks before she takes off at a jog in a new direction. Dee tries to keep up, weaving through the crowd. "Gods _damn_ it, Sam!" she hears Kara hollering, and then she comes to the edge of a cobbled-together pyramid court, where Kara's dragging Sam off by his collar.

Sam glances up at Dee and smiles. "Hey," he says before a coughing fit wracks his body. His face is pale, and his lungs rattle like a broken engine. Dee and Kara bracket him so that he doesn't fall over.

"Yeah, you're going right on today's Raptor," Dee says, patting his shoulder.

Sam shakes his head, wheezing. "And miss your visit?" he says. "Not a chance."

"No arguing," Kara says, sounding a little like she used to when she was barking at nuggets on the flight deck. "I'll pack your kit. Dee, can you handle getting him to the Raptor?"

"Sure can," Dee says, then pokes Sam in the side. "On your feet, mister. Lean on me."

Sam gives her a faint echo of his usual grin, and slings an arm around her shoulders. "Don't mind if I do," he says, and Dee shakes her head.

"Don't start," Kara says, then presses a kiss to his temple. "Just get on that ship, get better, and get back here."

"Yes ma'am," Sam says, saluting weakly with the wrong hand, and Dee starts steering him towards the Raptor.

When they get there, Dee helps him up to the hatch, settles him into the seat, and tells Racetrack, "Medical priority, just waiting on his kit." Margaret nods, and Dee hops out to watch for Kara.

There's a faint noise, just on the periphery of her hearing, that somehow sets her nerves jangling. It takes a moment before she recognizes the particular pitch of Cylon engines. _A scout?_ she thinks, and then she realizes that it’s more than one, a gathering whine just out of her range of sight.

"Go!" she shouts through the hatch without a second thought.

"Wait," Sam says, "What –"

Dee can hear Racetrack cursing. "Multiple Dradis contacts!" the pilot calls out. "Are you coming, ma'am?"

There's no sign of Starbuck. "Shut up and _move!_ " Dee says, and backs away as the hatch starts closing.

"Wait!" Sam shouts, but it's too late. The hatch seals and Dee doesn't stop to watch it take off, just starts running towards Kara's tent, a half-formed prayer on her lips.

The Cylon raiders are screaming through the air by the time she gets there, and Kara’s nowhere in sight. " _Frak,_ " Dee says, breathless, an icy chill in the pit of her stomach.

All around her, people are frozen in their tracks, staring up at the sky.

 

* * *

 **THREE MONTHS LATER**  
**NEW CAPRICA**

 

Dee ties the faded scarf around her cropped hair, knotting it tightly at the base of her skull, sparing no thought to the luxuries she left behind on Pegasus. She glances in the mirror, then, checking only that her expression holds true, her mask in place, showing nothing suspicious, nothing dangerous, nothing weak, then she heads out of the tent. She pauses only to touch the base of the two figurines – Artemis, Aphrodite – that Kara left behind.

Bypassing the breakfast line that winds its way down the street, she treads a path so familiar she can walk it in her sleep. It's what gets her out of bed in the mornings.

Every morning, first thing: find Gaeta.

Ask.

Ask, and ask, and ask again.

"I still don't know anything," Felix says. If she were anyone else, he wouldn't let her this far, this close, every day. "And the president's schedule is full."

"Please, Felix, I just need to know if she's all right," Dee says. "If she's even –" It's a good morning; she can tell because her voice doesn't break, or waver. Her eyes don't fill with tears. On the really bad days, she begs.

Not today.

"Please," she repeats, voice as steady as a stone.

"I'll do what I can," he says, an empty promise she's heard a thousand times.

She nods, and walks away.

If asking after Kara is the only thing that gets her out of bed in the morning, then her turn at the hidden wireless each night is the only thing getting her though her days working at the food processing plant. Starbuck’s not the only one they’re missing.

"Any news?" Tyrol asks, when she climbs down the ladder to the Resistance HQ that night.

"No," she says, "Any word from above?" It's their inside joke, gallows humor: two people of threadbare faith from religious families waiting from a sign from the sky. Except, of course, they're hoping for communication from the Fleet, from _home._

It's a poor attempt at humor, but it's all they have.

"Maybe tonight's the night," she says, and takes over at the wireless while he goes to see if they've received intel from their mysterious source inside the President's office. Not for the first time, she wishes they'd been successful stealing the election for Roslin, but she tucks that thought away and closes her eyes. Listening through the noise for a signal, any signal.

While the rig auto-dials slowly through the channels, she wires detonators by touch, from memory and long practice.

When her shift is over, she heads to her tent, touches the base of Kara's patrons, and goes to sleep.

In the morning, she is woken by the muffled boom of an explosion in the distance, and she allows herself a small, grim smile before starting all over again.

 

* * *

 

"I can get you five minutes with the President after lunch," Felix says, and Dee blinks.

"What?"

"Five minutes," he repeats, "Thirteen hundred. Don't be late." He closes the door before she can respond.

She skips work that day, gets Cally to cover for her. Digs through the tent for something to wear, something presentable, something that's not too –

Her hands are shaking, and Dee sits back on her heels, forcing her breathing to level out. Forcing herself still, calm. Everything around her is Kara's, or Sam's; her own civvies are threadbare and patched, but she hadn't touched their things since boxing them up and shoving them under the bed. She doesn't know what's worse – pawing through it all again, without them there, or holding on to all of it when she doesn't know if – _when!_ **–** she'll see them again. Some of these things are nice, would fetch good trade...

Dee would _never._ It's bad enough that she's looking for something to borrow now.

 _Kara won't mind,_ she thinks. _Kara will understand._

She finds a blue dress, simple but elegant, crisscrossing straps of darker blue, soft and delicate. She can't imagine Kara wearing it, but then remembers Colonial Day on the Astral Queen. She remembers dancing with Billy, seeing Lee and Kara laughing across the dance floor.

 _Lee,_ she thinks, balling the fabric up in her fists, fighting deep ache that wells up from her gut. _Lee, you'd **better** be out there._

She keeps looking. Finally, she pulls out a simple button-down shirtdress, deep russet with military-style pockets. It's far too big and has paint splatters on the cuffs, but she can belt it and roll the sleeves up.

Dee packs the rest away, pulls on her boots, and checks her reflection in the mirror; the mirror is unsympathetic. She tries to wrangle her hair into a semblance of order, the riot of curls barely tamed by a broad ribbon she ties as a makeshift headband.

 _Gaius Baltar,_ Dee thinks, glaring at her reflection. She unbuttons the top button, then another, then a third. Buttons the last back up, indecisive.

 _Good enough._ She lifts her chin, squares her shoulders, and leaves with ten minutes to spare.

 

* * *

 

"I remember you," President Baltar says, fatuous and overly delighted. In the corner, there's a Six sitting in a chair. The Cylon is reading over some reports, her pose screaming indifference, but something about the angle of her mouth says that she's paying very close attention to the conversation. "Dee, isn't it?"

"Anastasia Dualla," she replies, nodding, "Yes, Mister President."

"Good to see you're well,” he offers, one of those polite niceties to fill time she doesn’t have.

"Thank you, sir," she says, not echoing his sentiment in kind as she probably ought. "I don't want to take too much of your time, but I was wondering..."

"Yes?" he prompts, strolling around the side of the desk to lean against it, all attentive generosity. "I'm happy to hear your concerns, Anastasia, as I'm sure Gaeta has told you."

Gaeta has said nothing of the sort, but Dee nods anyway. "...um, do you know if Kara Thrace is...?" For all her careful planning, she doesn't know how to end her sentence. "Where she is, I mean. If she's..." Again, she stalls out, bingo fuel, adrift.

She drops her eyes to the floor, to the polished toes of Baltar's shoes inches away from her scuffed, muddy boots.

" _Well,_ " he says. "As I'm sure you know, I can't keep track of all the, ah," he clears his throat, "persons of interest that the administration –" not _his_ administration, but _the_ administration –"...has detained, but I can certainly do my best to access..." It's the most circuitous, polite 'no' that Dee's heard in her life.

"Please, sir," Dee says to the carpet.

"What is she to you?" The Six says, her voice suddenly close, and Dee looks up in alarm. She hadn't heard the Cylon moving. Six is perched on the desk, almost sinuously curled around Baltar, one hand on his arm.

"She's..." Dee tangles her hands together in her lap, a thousand answers crowding in her throat. _My last tie to Galactica, to Lee, to..._ "Kara's all I have left," Dee chokes out. All she has but the static at night, and she's not about to mention that.

The Six's mouth softens by just a fraction.

Dee leans forward, touches Baltar's hand where it rests on the edge of the desk. "Please," she says, knowing that the angle lets him see down her dress. She remembers how beautiful she used to be, and pulls that old confidence around her like a cloak.

The Six draws in a breath between her teeth, but Dee doesn't look at her, just keeps her eyes on Baltar's face. His tongue darts out, swipes at his bottom lip in a furtive gesture. Interest or nervousness or both, she doesn't care. It's enough.

There are three ways this can end, Dee knows:

     If this Six is the jealous type, Dee won’t survive the next few minutes.

     If she's jealous but forgiving, she'll tell Dee what she wants to know just to get her to leave.

     Or Six doesn't care, and Dee will get her information from Baltar.

"She's all I have left," Dee says again. She trails her fingers across the back of Gaius' hand, and she waits.

 

* * *

 

Dee keeps her head high as she leaves.

It doesn't matter. It _doesn't._ All that matters is knowing where one of her missing birds is.

 _One down,_ she thinks, and tries not to number the rest. If she starts counting those still lost, the numbers will never stop climbing.

Kara's enough, for today.

 

* * *

 

They get another back the next day. "Colonel!" Dee says when she spots him in the street. Tigh turns at the sound of her voice and she doesn't gasp when she sees the angle of the bandage – nothing truly shocks her anymore. She _does_ nod in greeting, an acknowledgment as good as a salute. "Good to see you, sir."

"Wish I could say the same, " he says, voice like a scabbing wound. "But I wouldn't wish this place on anybody I liked half as much as you, Dee. Any news?"

"Starbuck's alive. In detention," Dee offers, and he coughs up something like a laugh.

"Of course she is, heh. Too stubborn to die, just like me. To dangerous to let loose," he says, and he bares his teeth in a terrible grin, letting the rest of the sentence go unsaid: _Just like us._

Dee nods again. "It is good to see you, sir. Give my best to your wife."

That night, they plan the bombing of the NCP graduation ceremony.

"Good hunting," she tells Duck. He nods, and the empty look in his eyes mirrors her own. He's not the first she's relayed hopeless orders to, and he won't be the last.

 

* * *

 

They get the jamming frequencies from Tyrol's source, and Dee throat closes up, staring at the numbers and doing the math in her head automatically, knowing how to cut through.

 _Lee,_ she thinks, _please be listening,_ and she sends the message.

 

* * *

 

Dee waits in the brush at the rendezvous point, straining her ears for a sign of Galactica’s advance team. For a long time, all she hears is the sound of the water and the wind lightly rustling in the trees.

"C-Bucks rule!" Dee hears in a familiar voice, and her heart stutters.

"Go Archers!" she shouts back, and then she hears Sam's laugh. _He got out in time,_ she thinks, barely able to get to her feet under the crushing wave of relief.

She's so happy that she can't _breathe,_ and she doesn't even notice that he's wearing a flight suit before she's wrapped up in his arms. His wings jab into her cheek and she pulls back.

"Since when are you an LT?" she asks with a laugh.

Then Sharon signals that they have incoming, and they have to run.

 

* * *

 

The calm before the storm: tomorrow morning they'll gamble everything, roll the hard six. For now, it's quiet.

Dee walks away from the planning session, feeling as steady as she's ever felt before a battle, a preternatural calm settling into her bones. She and Sam head to her – his and Kara's – to  _their_ tent, to pack what they can carry.

"I hope you don't mind," she says, not looking at him. "That I stayed here, I mean."

He chuckles under his breath. "Are you kidding? No, of course not." She envies his ease, his confidence, his _uniform._ She'd give anything to have her blues with her, to feel her uniform wrapping her up, pulling her shoulders and spine straight.

Everything that she owns barely fills half the bag, and on impulse, she wraps the blue dress around the goddess statues, stows them in one corner.

"I don't –" he laughs, sitting down on the bed with a dazed expression. "I don't know what I want to pack. I've been doing without all of this for so long..."

Dee digs through the boxes, grabs a bundle of crimson and black and gold, hands it to him. His laugh rings out, filled with foreign delight. "My jersey," he says, broad hands overlapping hers. "Thank you, I'd forgotten..." His eyes meet hers, suddenly serious. _"Thank you._ "

And then he leans up, pulling on her hands so that she's close enough, kissing her carefully, sweetly. Dee wants to lean into it, fall down over him and let him hold her up for a minute, just a moment, but she can't. If she breaks now, she doesn't know what shape she'll be in tomorrow. She pulls away.

"I... I can't," Dee says, feeling foolish. "Lee... and Kara, they're still –" She finished the sentence with a vague gesture, meaning _out there._ Past the noise and the ominous quiet and the impending chaos, they're out there, waiting for Sam and Dee to find them.

"The last time I saw you, you saved my life twice over. I'd be dead if I'd stayed here, and you –"

"You'd have pulled through," she says, wanting to believe it.

"I don't think so," he says quietly, meaning it. "Not with Kara gone."

"We'll get her tomorrow," Dee says. She sits next to him, the jersey fallen to the ground by their muddy boots, and puts her hand over his. "We will. And we'll all get out, rejoin the Fleet, and..."

"What if we don't," he says quietly, and she realizes that he may wear the uniform, but all of his battles before this have been guerrilla ops. He's new to this kind of fighting.

She's been living the other side of the war since the Cylons arrived on New Caprica. She’s learned that there's a different texture to war when you're fighting surreptitiously, hiding in plain sight, and when you’re in the military surrounded by clear demarcations between friend and foe. A different flavor of determination in the back of your throat.

Dee looks down; her wedding ring glints in the dim light. There’s another on Sam’s hand, and matching ones on their spouses' hands. She remembers that the last man she touched was Gaius Baltar.

Dee swallows hard at that memory and looks at Sam's face, his eyes as blue and clear as the sky’s never been since she landed here.

"We will," she says firmly, leaning in close. And again: "We will," whispered against his lips.

 

* * *

 

Dee remembers the next day in fragments, in sounds and touch more than sight:

The sleepy grumble Sam makes while she pulls on her jacket; his broad palm sliding up her spine, fingers creeping under the hem of her shirt.

"Outta the rack, soldier." The edge in her voice, all wrong for the hushed morning, cutting short their stolen reverie in the tent she’d never really let herself call ‘home.’ "Fifteen minutes."

The rasp of the sheets as he sits up; the place where he’d touched her is cold. "You know, I –" His voice, thin and raw with sleep.

"I know." The salt of his skin on her lips as she twists to press a kiss against his shoulder. "It's okay. Get ready." Not much later, there’s a muffled boom of the first explosion at the edge of the settlement.

Then: sirens, screaming, and the soft resistance of the sand underfoot as they run, serpentine, through the rows of tents. Tyrol’s voice barking orders at the weapons cache before the teams scatter to their rescue points.

Her pack bumping at her side, the strap digging across her chest. The grip of her gun in her hand as it recoils, the sharp cracks of it firing until she sees a Doral go down.

The roar of Galactica, dropping towards them out of the sky like the hammer of Hephaestus, spitting fire and Vipers before winking back out again with the sound of a titan gasping for breath.

Sam's body curling over her protectively as they duck away from the rushing wind and flying grit. "You good?" His murmur, low and breathless in her ear.

"Yeah," she says, "You?"

He nods, a sharp vertical jerk of his chin against her hair. They start running again.

The clang, clang, clang of Cylon troops behind them. "This way," she says. Pulling Sam by the elbow through the narrow gap between two tents.

She trips over a body, sand sliding between her clutching fingers, rubbing her palms raw. "Frak," she says, then recognizes the corpse by the bright red woven bracelet – dedication to Ares – on one outflung arm. She turns the body over, scrabbles at the man's collar for the chain she knows is there.

"What are you doing?" Sam says as she gets the key. "We need to move!" His hands tug at her jacket, urgent.

"You know the rendezvous coordinates?" she asks, standing.

"Yeah, why, come on, we –"

She presses the key into his hand. "You're a pilot: you need to get the Rising Star off the ground."

"What? I've only had –"

"Principle's the same," she says, cutting him off. "And Pierson's dead. I can't fly it, so you have to."

He looks down at the corpse at their feet. "But," he says, " _Kara –_ "

"I know the layout of the detention center. I know where she is. I'll get her."

"Frak," he says, voice harsh and mutinous.

"Lieutenant," she snaps. "Head to the northeast corner and evac the Rising Star with all the souls aboard her." She takes a breath. " _That's an order._ "

His eyes meet hers in a belligerent glare, but all he says is, "Yes, ma'am."

She pulls him close, kisses him swift and fierce. "See you on the other side," she says, and turns away before they can say anything else.

 

* * *

 

The detention center is quiet, almost hushed in comparison to the confusion outside. She hears running footsteps, hushed, panicked shouts, but no explosions rattle through the fine bones of her ear. Occasional gunfire reports from the entry team ahead of her, sweeping the far ends of the building.

Dee winds her way through the escaping crowd, fighting upstream. She hears Kara's voice, distant and shrill, shouting a name.

Dee finds Kara's cell door open, and –

It's not a cell. Instead of a small, cramped closet, she finds space and sunlight and tasteful furnishings, and a staircase leading down. Dee pauses in the doorway, hearing voices.

"Say it again," the man says, and Dee recognizes the Cylon’s voice.

"I...love you," Kara whispers in a broken, small voice. Dee's chest feels like it's collapsing inward. She thinks of Sam, of Lee, and wonders what's happened in this place, Kara caged in comfort.

"Now the rest."

Then silence, a gasp, whispers Dee can't make out. She steels herself and steps around the corner, gun at the ready. She spots the Leoben blocking Kara from view and the sudden, quick flash of a knife.

The Cylon’s body falls to the ground, revealing Kara and a very blonde little girl with a bandage wound around her head. Dee lowers her weapon, and Kara's eyes lift from the body on the rug to stare up at Dee, wide-eyed and wary and _terrified_ in a way that makes Dee's stomach turn. The knife clatters to the ground.

"Hey, Starbuck," Dee says, and Kara takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"Hey, Dee," Kara says weakly, her grin a wraith that flickers into existence and twists from sight again.

Dee looks down at the little girl. "And who's this?" She tries to sound reassuring, tries to smile.

Kara lifts the girl to her hip, her right hand streaked in red. "Dee, this is Kacey," she says, looking at the child and not at Dee. "She's my daughter."

Dee knows she's staring, knows she should say something, but there aren't any words for this. Her mind is filled with noise, with static. She swallows convulsively.

Something hard moves into Kara's eyes.

"I'll explain later," Kara says tightly, coming up the stairs, Kasey cradled protectively at her side. "Let's _move._ "

 

* * *

 

The familiar planes and angles of Galactica wrap around Dee as she steps out of the hatch of the Raptor, and she feels something in her chest relax. Tension she'd long learned to live with unspools just enough that its absence is a shock. Then she spots Lee, and everything else falls away. There's no deck crew calling directions to the pilots, no chatter from others reuniting with their loved ones, just the slight drop down from the Raptor's wing into Lee's arms and the sound of his voice again.

"Dee," he says against her hair, hands clutching her close and fierce. She pulls back just enough to let his mouth find hers, and he touches her face with careful, trembling fingers. His lips drag away and he gasps, "I can't believe –" he says breathlessly, "I'm so –" She nods, feeling tears streaking her cheeks, and kisses him again.

"Kasey?" a woman says, and Dee pulls away in time to see Kara stepping down to the deck, and a stranger sobbing as she takes the little girl from Kara's arms. "– my baby girl –" the woman says, and thanks Kara over and over. "When the Cylons took her, I thought... But you _saved_ her. Gods bless you."

As soon as the woman turns away, Kara's face fragments into a whirlwind of emotions that sends an answering pang through Dee's heart and a thousand questions through her mind.

"What's wrong?" Lee asks.

"I don't know," Dee answers.

 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Dee burns her hair straight again, buttons up her blues, takes her place in Galactica's CIC with comms in one ear, the Admiral in the other. Juggling signals and noise, her voice the conduit from home to the birds in the black. Three squares in the mess on metal trays and Lee in his – _their_ – quarters waiting for her at night.  
  
She spends the first night in his arms, trying to remember what _safe_ feels like, tucked inside the curve of his body while the memories rattle her bones. She slips away carefully to restlessly pace the halls.  
  
The pilots are drinking and playing cards and laughing in the mess, raucous and roughhousing and too, too loud. Sam's leaning in towards Kara; Kara's leaning in over the table to take the pot, cackling. Kara spots Dee at the hatch and Starbuck’s smile falters, just for a moment, before it breaks open wide.  
  
"Hey, Dee," Kara calls, "Come help me teach these Pegasus morons how it's done."  
  
Dee got banned from playing Triad once, because she counts cards like she counts voices like she counts ships and the names of the dead, which is to say: reflexively, unless she stops herself or she's impaired somehow. Starbuck used to give her whiskey before Dee was allowed to ante up.  
  
She remembers losing the Olympic Carrier, feels Sam's gaze on her like a brand.  
  
"No thanks," she says with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Just... making the rounds."  
  
Kara lifts a glass in salute and resumes heckling Showboat.  
  
Dee wonders if Sam watches her go, as her feet take her towards the gym. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a clock starts counting down. She sheds her sweatshirt, drops it on a bench, and starts wrapping her hands.  
  
Thirty three minutes, she realizes; she's waiting for a _pursuit._ Waiting for someone to come find her. Lee, maybe, or Sam, or maybe even Kara...  
  
She doesn't expect Seelix, who slips in to hold the bag like they have a standing appointment. "Hey," Dee says, testing out her jab.  
  
"Hey," Seelix says. "How's it feel to be back?"  
  
Dee gives the bag a quick, emphatic 1-2-5-2 before answering. "What do you think?" she asks, rolling her shoulder and catching the expression on Diana's face. "That's not the question you want to ask me. What's up?"  
  
Seelix tells her about the Circle.  
  
Dee says yes.

  
  
* * *

  
  
Jammer's face through the glass, begging, tied hands scrabbling at the window in supplication.  
  
His mouth is moving, but she can't make out the words. Dee looks away and remembers how many were killed in the Temple on New Caprica. Women and children, their blood spilled on the altar and on the sand.  
  
Silence, only silence.  
  
Lee murmurs in his sleep when she slips back into bed, but her bones settle in around his shape this time, and sleep claims her quickly.

  
  
* * *

  
  
"I'm going to the gym again this afternoon," she tells Lee at lunch the next day, only half lying.  
  
"Everything okay?" he asks, eyes gentle, worried. His hand curls around hers on the table.  
  
"Getting there," she says evasively. "I just..." She forces a smile. "Wish I knew who your trainer was, while I was gone. You really trimmed down."  
  
He huffs a laugh, looking down at his tray. "Yeah, Sam kicked my ass into shape, all right."  
  
"Really?" she says, lifting her eyebrows as she takes a drink of water. "I'll have to book some time with him, then."  
  
He doesn't rise to the bait, just lets his smile fade a little. "Just... don't be out late again tonight," he says, seriously. "I missed you last night."  
  
She looks away. "Sorry," she says, meaning it. "I've been... restless."  
  
He opens his mouth to speak, closes it again. He squeezes her fingers with his instead.

  
  
* * *

  
  
The next file in the stack is Felix Gaeta's. Worse than Jammer, worse than the other names on the list. She stares at the file, barely recognizing Felix – he looks so _young_ in the photo, younger than she can ever remember seeing him – while the others argue around her.  
  
She worked with Felix for years on Galactica, trusted him. They'd been _friends,_ before New Caprica.  
  
Then the Cylons turned him into a gatekeeper, turned her into a supplicant, everything and everyone she loved stolen by distance, lost in the black and buried in the noise.  
  
_How complicit had he been?_ she asked herself, remembering him saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over. How sorry had he been? How sorry _should_ he have been?  
  
Is 'sorry' _enough?_  
  
Her hand creeps over her throat, covers her mouth. She remembers touching Baltar's hand because Gaeta had opened the door; touching Sam's hand in the dark, ready to die the next morning. Remembers Kara picking up a child with one hand bloody and the other clean, then Kara returning Kasey to her mother on the deck of Galactica as Lee held Dee in his arms.  
  
How much of that was the Cylons? How much of it was Baltar? How much of it was Felix?  
  
How much was Dee failing to steal the election?  
  
Connor calls the question. Seelix, Connor, Tigh, Barolay: guilty, and then they turn to her.  
  
"I can't," Dee says, "I'm done; I'm sorry." She turns away even as Connor calls after her to come back.  
  
She goes to the gym instead; she should have trusted that first impulse. Pushes herself slowly, but keeps going until the place empties out, quiet. Hits the bag alone until her knuckles bleed and her bones go numb.  


* * *  


The hot water on her knuckles makes her hiss, but it's good, it's fine. It's... better, at least. The blood on her hands is her own.  
  
She grabs a towel and goes to the showers, hearing the rush of water running, someone already there. Dee stops short when she recognizes Kara, long blonde hair trailing in wet clumps across tattooed shoulders. Her head is hanging, and one hand is braced on the tile, while the other... Dee looks away, ready to leave until she hears Starbuck _sob,_ quiet and broken and almost swallowed by the sound of the water.  
  
She looks again, and sees that Kara's actually scratching at the scars that arc low on her abdomen, fingers like claws like she's trying to tear herself apart.  
  
"Kara," Dee says, and Kara looks up past her straggling bangs, face twisted in a terrible rictus of emotion.  
  
"Dee..." Kara says, clutching once at the curve of her stomach below her bellybutton. "He said... they took..." and her voice shatters into fragments like glass. There are two scars between Kara's spread fingertips, one from a bullet that she shows off to _everyone_ and a second that she doesn't talk about.  
  
Pieces click together in Dee's mind, not the whole picture but _enough._ She reaches out, and tugs Starbuck out from under the scalding water.  
  
Kara's shaking apart in her hands, and Dee wraps a towel around her, smooths her hair out of her face. There's something _empty_ in Kara's eyes, and Dee just wants to wrap every towel around Kara and tuck her away somewhere.  
  
That won't work, though. Not with _Starbuck._ She takes Kara by the shoulder and shakes her once, firmly. "This is what we're gonna do," Dee says, "We're going to dry you off, and get you some alcohol. Not necessarily in that order."  
  
Kara laughs without smiling, and drags a palm over her face. "Yeah, okay," she says, and lets Dee lead the way to her duty locker.  
  
There's a cluster of pilots there, reading and laughing, trading jokes. "Give us the room," Dee says, voice brooking no opposition, and the others take one look at Starbuck and at the clotting wounds on Dee's knuckles, then go with token grumbles. Kara sinks onto the edge of her rack, staring at her knees.  
  
Dee swipes a bottle and two sticky glasses, and pours them both a drink. Kara takes it without looking, downs it in one go, hands it back for more. Dee refills it, and settles in next to Kara, close but not touching. She tucks her towel around herself, unwilling to get dressed while Kara isn't. It would be... _imbalanced,_ somehow, and there's enough of that in this room already.  
  
The burn of Chief's swill hits the back of her throat like fiery splinters, and she coughs, wrinkling her nose.  
  
"Leoben lied to you," Dee says quietly, after a moment. She stares at the pyramid tattoo on Kara's shoulder. "I don't know what else he did to you in there, but –"  
  
"Don't say his name," Kara spits. "I don't want to hear it." She swallows half of her drink. "And yeah, you _don't_ know. What's more, I sure as _shit_ don't want to talk about it, okay?"  
  
"Okay," Dee says. She takes another sip of her drink, too: she can't keep up with Starbuck, but she can follow behind at her own pace. "Can _I_ talk?"  
  
"Knock yourself out," Kara says, and grabs the bottle.  
  
Dee looks up, stares at the struts of the bunk above, counts three breaths, slow and even. Pretends she's alone, just for a second. "Six hours into the Occupation, I realized I was on my own. I didn't know if the Fleet had been destroyed or if it had jumped away, so I didn't know where Lee was or if he was even still alive. I didn't know if Sam's Raptor had left in time or had gotten shot down. I went back to your tent to find you, to –" Her voice breaks, and she hides it in another swallow of booze. "And your tent was empty, things scattered and broken, like. Like something had happened."  
  
"Yeah," Kara says, quiet and bitter. " _Something._ "  
  
Dee nods. "I found out later that you weren't the only one taken – most of the people I knew, or trusted, were gone in that first day. But with Lee gone and Sam gone, all that was left was the knowledge that you needed to be found, and I was the only one left to find you."  
  
Kara twists to look at her, her face crumpled. "Dee," she says softly. "You didn't need –"  
  
"Yeah I did, Kara," Dee interrupts. "It was all I had, some mornings. That and the Resistance. I was _alone._ " She finishes her drink with a hiss as a splash spills over her knuckles. "So I went to see Baltar. Took me months, but I got a meeting with our _illustrious president_ ..." She grits out the last between her teeth. "And I... And he told me where you were, and the first chance I got, I found you and brought you home."  
  
Kara searches her face, and Dee lifts her chin, not blinking. Lets her fill in the gaps. "Dee," Kara says again, in a breathless whisper. "What did you _do?_ "  
  
"I found you and I brought you home," Dee repeats. "I just... I wish I'd been able to do it sooner."  
  
Starbuck scoffs and turns away, taking a swig directly from the bottle. "Don't give me that shit, Dee. There was nothing you could do, okay? There was no frakking way he was going to let me go. I killed him and I killed him and I _killed him,_ and he kept coming back, and he was _never_ gonna let me go, and there was _nothing you could do about it,_ okay?"  
  
Her voice has a little of its old fire, the certainty that makes her so good leading pilots, nuggets and seasoned vets alike. Dee leans to the side, bumps Kara's shoulder with her own. "Yeah," she agrees sadly.  
  
She wonders if Kara's listening to herself – she usually doesn't, but this would be a good time for an exception.  
  
Kara hangs her head, elbows propped on her thighs, and stares down at the deck. "Am I supposed to keep talking now?" Kara says wryly. "Is it my turn to _share?_ "  
  
Dee shrugs. "Do whatever you want, Kara. I just... thought you should know that."  
  
"Frakking _great,_ " Kara says, reaching forward to slam the empty glass upside-down on the table. "I actually _didn't_ want to know that, Dee. I don't want to know the hell you went through – for _me,_ Gods, what were you _thinking?_ " She takes a long pull from the bottle. "I don't even want to know what _I_ went through." The bottle goes next to the glass, and Kara rakes her hands through her hair. "I want to forget, do you understand that? I want it to be _over_ and I want to _forget,_ and _talking about it_ makes it come _back._ " She turns to Dee. "Talking about it means you have to carry it, too, and nobody should have to carry the shit that's in my head, okay?"  
  
Dee frowns sympathetically, and nods. "Okay," she says, and tucks Kara's hair behind her ear.  
  
Kara shifts closer, leaning her forehead against Dee’s shoulder, warm breath ghosting along Dee’s bare clavicle. Dee shivers, waiting.  


* * *  


A sharp pain makes Dee arch upwards, Kara's teeth on her inner thigh. Alcohol in her veins, making her thoughts drift, memories dragging her back down, and Kara's hands catching her hips, holding her somewhere in between.  
  
“There,” she pants, as Kara's tongue twists against her just right, and Kara's chuckle is muffled as she does it again, and again. “Gods, yes, right _there._ ”  
  
Clever fingers curl insider her, clever mouth on her clit. Dee doesn't know how they got here, but if this is Kara's way of 'forgetting,' Dee's gotta give her points for _style._  


* * *  


Dee paces her breathing, feels the muscles of her stomach clench and release, a smooth rhythm she counts off in her head. _Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen..._ Hotdog, Kat, and Narcho are on the other side of the gym, one-upping each other with kill counts and free weights.  
  
She grins to herself, knowing Hotdog's current story is exaggerated. His hit count keeps going up every time he tells it. _Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two..._  
  
Sam kneels on the mat in front of her. “Hey,” he says, putting his hands over her feet. Dee stops at the top of her next rep.  
  
“Hey,” she says, greeting him with a smile.  
  
“Do you know about the Circle?” he asks, serious and quiet. She drops her shoulders back to the mat, keeps counting.  
  
“Yeah,” she says, pacing her words evenly. “What about it?”  
  
“They asked me to be on it,” he says. Before she can ask, he continues. “I said no. Then they asked Kara.”  
  
_Oh,_ she thinks. _Thirty-nine, forty..._ “Yeah?” she says. “What did _she_ say?”  
  
“What do you think?” he answers.  
  
“Yeah,” Dee says. “Sounds about right.” She lets the silence stretch, keeps the rhythm, keeps the count.  
  
His hands grip her shoes, thumbs tucked against the arches of her feet. “Heard a rumor you were with her last night,” he says.  
  
“Yep,” she says, hitting fifty and stopping, staring up at the ceiling. No use denying it, really. “Jealous?” She considers going for another fifty. “I thought you and Kara didn't _do_ jealousy.”  
  
He laughs, but it's brittle. “Just wondering where I was on the rotation.” She sits up again, just to smack him on the head.  
  
“It's not like that,” she says.  
  
“Yeah?” he asks. “Does Lee know?” She narrows her eyes, and he just cocks his head at her. “'Cos I thought you two didn't _do_ dishonesty.”  
  
She yanks her feet out of his hands, rolls to her feet in a smooth glide. “Right,” she says, grabbing her towel. “And when was the last time _you_ talked to Lee?”  
  
Sam doesn’t answer. “That's what I thought,” Dee says. “I've gotta go; I swapped shifts with Hoshi today.”  


* * *  


Gaeta is spared; Dee doesn't know whose vote exonerated him, but she hopes it was Kara's. No way of knowing for certain, though, and she doesn't want to ask. She's just relieved, glad that walking away didn't sign his warrant as sure as voting guilty would have done.  
  
President Roslin takes up her mantle again; she issues a blanket pardon to everyone in the Fleet. It doesn't feel like forgiveness, but it's close enough for now. The next time Dee sees Starbuck, her blonde hair is cropped short again, and something trembles in Dee’s chest before she shoves it down and away.  
  
Lee's assigned as CAG again; scribbling formations and drill rotations on scraps of paper that scatter across every flat surface in their quarters. Dee stacks them up neatly, clearing the table for dinner, and he snaps at her.  
  
“What?” she says. “I'm just –”  
  
“You're... they're all out of order, now.” He takes them from her hands, starts sorting them out again.  
  
“There was an order?” she asks, trying for levity. He catches her eye and lets himself laugh.  
  
“Yeah, there was an order,” he says. “I'm sorry, I'm just... _tired_. The Pegasus and Galactica squads aren't playing nice with each other, especially now that we're short on ships.” He pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “And the Colonel and Starbuck can't keep their big mouths shut, so there's a rift between those who were shipside during the Occupation, and those who got left planetside...”  
  
Dee sighs, and sits down in a chair. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”  
  
“Has Kara... has she said anything?” Lee leans a hip against the table, papers forgotten. “Has she said anything, you know, about...?”  
  
Dee stares at him. “I don't... You should ask her yourself, Lee. If you really want to know, you should try talking to her yourself.” _You might have better luck than I did,_ Dee doesn't say, knowing better than that.  
  
“I need to know if I can trust her, out there,” Lee says, pushing it.  
  
Dee stands, facing him squarely. “Oh, no,” she says, “Don't pull that with me. It's not fair, and it's not right.”  
  
“What do – ?” Lee blusters, and the utter guilelessness on his face makes her want to _shake_ him.  
  
_“No,_ Lee,” she snaps. “Don't act like Kara's just one of your pilots, here. Give me some credit. This isn't Apollo, the CAG, asking about Starbuck, one of his squad leaders. This is you, Lee, asking me – your _wife_ – about –”  
  
“Wait a second,” Lee interrupts, standing with his hands up and open towards her. “You want to talk about our _marriage_ now?” He gestures circles in the air as he talks. “At least I'm _here_. I go to bed, right here _,_ every night, and you're not there. I wake up in the morning, _right here,_ and you're already lacing your boots. You're not pulling double shifts in the CIC any more; we're staffed to the gills in there. So where do you go? Just busting your knuckles on the bag for eight hours a day?”  
  
The scabs on Dee's knuckles stretch as she balls her fists at her side. “ _Don't,_ ” she says. “Just because I need some _space_ –”  
  
Lee shakes his head. “No,” he says. “This isn't you 'needing space.' This is you building a wall. This is me on the outside, looking in, and I – I don't even know how I got there.”  
  
“Lee,” she says, all her anger draining away in a rush. “That's not –”  
  
He cuts her off with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, it is. And you know what, if you need space, _fine._ ” He sweeps the stacks of papers together and grabs his coat from the chair. “Have all the space you want. I've gotta... I've got a job to do.”

And then he's gone.  


* * *  


There's a dead Basestar beside the Lion's Head Nebula. “Athena, Longshot, what's your position?” Dee asks over comms, Sam’s callsign still tasting foreign on her tongue.  
  
“They're all dying,” Sharon says. “Some kind of _disease_...” And Dee swallows down the fear, relays the message. Gives herself points for not letting her voice waver at all.  
  
_Come back,_ she thinks. _Come back._ And then the Admiral gives her the order to say it out loud.

  
* * *  


Dee doesn't visit Sam in quarantine and she couldn’t explain why if there were anyone to ask.  She knows he hadn't left the Raptor, had stayed behind in case they needed quick evac, but that's no guarantee of anything. She wonders if Kara is there.  
  
Instead, Dee paces her quarters, waiting for Lee, but he's gone, away on Colonial One with his father, discussing the situation, their _options_.  
  
All she can do is wait.  


* * *  


After the nebula, she starts spending more time at home. It's better. Simpler, easier.  
  
Late one night, she pulls out the bottle of ambrosia they’ve been saving and takes away the duty logs Lee’s working on. She pours him a careful measure and folds her hands in her lap. She doesn't need alcohol for this, not this time.  
  
She tells him about New Caprica. She tells him about the Resistance, and the things they did. She tells him about Baltar, about Sam the night before the exodus. She talks about everything, right up until she found Kara in the Detention Center, and she stops there.  
  
“Then what?” Lee asks, eyes red like he hasn't slept for a week. His voice sounds like he's been screaming, but he hasn't said a word the whole time. His glass is almost empty.  
  
“I got Kara, and we came back home.” Dee says.  
  
“But what –” he starts. “What was she like, when you found her?”  
  
Dee shakes her head, gently. “That's not mine to tell.”  
  
He lets out a deep breath. “Yeah, okay.” His fingers are trembling on the glass, and she closes her hand over his.  
  
“I'm sorry, Lee.” She's not quite sure what she's apologizing for – maybe everything, she couldn't say. She just knows it's _true._ “I couldn't talk about it before, it was just... too much. And I wanted so badly to...” She's not sure how to finish that sentence. “I'm sorry.”  
  
She suddenly wishes that they didn’t _have_ to say anything, that Starbuck’s straightforward solutions - fight, frak, run - worked here. But it’s _Lee_ , so Dee knows that won’t fly, no matter how strongly she’s tempted.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, dragging his palm over the bottom of his face. He looks _overwhelmed,_ and she isn't sure if this was the right thing to do, telling him everything all at once.  
  
“Are you... okay?” she asks haltingly.  
  
Lee huffs a small laugh. “You know... Sam signed up almost as soon as he got through the pneumonia. I thought – I thought he was looking for something to do, some way to be _involved._ Then as soon as he found out the rescue plan, he transferred to Galactica to be Sharon’s ECO, and I realized what he was going to do. We... we fought.” He touches his cheekbone, like he's expecting to find a bruise that isn't there. “And then I was ordered to run with the rest of the Fleet. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, Dee.” He blinks rapidly, looking away. “And I couldn't – I couldn't do it. I disobeyed orders because I couldn't let him go while I ran. I couldn't run away while everything – every _one_ – I loved was hanging in the balance.” Lee pauses, frowning. “So I tipped the balance, broke apart my command, my _ship_ , so that I could bring you all home.”  
  
Dee's tears spill over, and she reaches for his other hand. “And you did,” she says.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, and his mouth twists. “It doesn't feel like it, though.”  
  
Dee shifts, stands, slides into his lap, and pulls him close. “You _did,_ ” she says again. “We're here, we're safe.” She grips his shoulders, tight, then pulls back so that she can rest her forehead against his. “I'm _here._ ”  
  
He nods jerkily. “Yeah,” he says. “You are.” And she kisses him, because there's nothing left to say.  


* * *


	3. Chapter 3

Dee hands the conn over to Hoshi. “You going to the dance?” he asks.

“Wouldn’t miss it!” she responds, grinning. “Gotta keep an eye on Lee, after all. Make sure he’s in one piece at the end of the night.”

“Good luck with that,” he says with a casual salute, and Dee waves over her shoulder as she goes.

When she gets there, Lee’s already stripped to his tanks, taping his hands. “Stop that,” she says, “You’re doing it all wrong.” He laughs and lets her take over, charging her a kiss as the fee.

“Haven’t seen much of you lately,” Cally says brightly, bumping Dee with her hip.

“Like you haven’t been busy, too,” Dee teases back. “I’m surprised you brought Nick with you.”

“Ah, Nicky’s a fighter,” Cally says. “He might even sleep better with the noise.”

“If you say so,” Lee responds, looking dubious.

“I don’t understand it either,” Chief Tyrol says, shaking his head. “I’m just grateful we can get him to sleep at all.”

“I do _not_ envy you,” Dee says. She cuts the ends of the tape with her teeth, and tucks them under.

“Yeah?” Cally says, “Not looking to be a mom anytime soon?”

“Gods, no,” Dee says, laughing. She laces Lee's gloves up, swift and even with practice.

“Well, who'll carry the next generation of Adama boys?” Cally asks. “'Cos you _know_ –”

“ _Lee!_ ” Helo bellows from the ring. “You about done dawdling, or are you ready to dance?”

“You’re ON, Agathon!” Lee calls up, and opens his mouth for Dee to pop his guard in place.

“You get ‘em!” she says, taking her place in her husband’s corner.

 

* * *

 

Dee remembers another dance.

She'd woken up the next morning with her head on Lee's chest, flushing hotly at the memories of the night before and with the realization that they were _naked in the middle of a field._

They'd gotten married that day.

 

* * *

 

Helo is whaling the _crap_ out of Lee, but Lee just shakes it off and keeps going back for more.

 

* * *

 

“I should go,” Dee had said, breathless and winded from dancing. “I should pack.” She'd smiled shyly at Lee. “I mean, if you still want me to move in...”

“I do!” Lee had said, laughing, winding his arms around her waist. “I do. But... you can get your stuff tomorrow, right?” He'd nuzzled into her hair, and she'd smiled, indecisive.

Then she'd spotted Starbuck over his shoulder, staring at them with an unreadable expression. Kara had caught her glance then quirked an eyebrow, raising her glass in a wordless toast.

“Yeah,” Dee had said, on impulse. “Sure, I can stay.”

Then she'd dragged Lee over to the bar and stolen Sam's drink.

At Sam’s protests, she'd laughed. “Your liver will thank me,” Dee had said.

“Besides,” Lee had added, angling in on Sam's other side and gesturing to the bartender for a refill of his own. “Everyone knows you're a lightweight; no reason to give them proof.”

Starbuck had spluttered a guffaw into her glass. “Aw, Sammy, you gonna take that from them?”

Sam had blinked at Dee and Lee, bookends with matching expectant expressions. “You know, Kara, I don't think I have any other choice,” he'd said, lifting both hands in surrender. “I know when I'm outnumbered.”

“Good man,” Dee had said, patting his arm reassuringly and signaling for some water.

“Boo!” Kara had called from the other side of Lee. “If you won't stand up for you, I will. Bartender! Another round!” And she'd leveled a mock glare at Lee and Dee. “Not only will I take Sam's round, but I will also drink _both_ of you under the table on his behalf. How's _that?_ ”

“No, no no,” Lee had said, backing away and waving a finger at Kara. “ _You_ have had a head start.”

The bartender had delivered four shots, the water, and Lee's refill to boot. Kara had lifted two of the small glasses in the air with a challenging grin. “What'll we toast to?”

Taking pity on Lee, Dee had taken the other two, leaving him his refill and Sam the water. “To friends,” she'd suggested.

“To friends,” Lee had echoed. “Old and new, absent or present.” He'd taken his glass and clinked it against Sam's.

Kara had snorted. “You _sap,_ ” she'd said, but tapped her shots, _one-two,_ against Dee's. Dee clinked once against Sam's and the other against Lee's, and they all drank.

 

* * *

 

Now Dee spots Starbuck, who’s avidly cheering on from the sidelines and exchanging comments with Athena. Then Lee gets waved out by Cottle.

“Come on!” Dee shouts at Tigh, throwing her hands up. Then she has her hands full, guiding her husband out of the ring to get patched up.

When she looks again, Kara's gone.

 

* * *

 

“Oof,” Dee had said, “I think that's about my limit.”

“Oh my _Gods,_ Dee,” Kara had said. “Not you, too.”

“Some of us like to actually _remember_ celebrating, Starbuck,” Lee had said.

“Some of us actually know _how_ to celebrate, Apollo,” she'd taunted back.

“I have an idea,” Sam had said. “I wanna show you guys something.” And then he'd led them all off into the chilly night. Lee had grabbed a blanket to wrap around Dee's shoulders and she'd hummed happily, leaning into his arms.

 

* * *

 

“Packing it in so soon?” Kara says, familiar challenge in her voice as Lee goes to retrieve his tags. Dee wonders when they'd last had a conversation that wasn't about training maneuvers and CAP rotations. From the way Lee's shoulders draw together, it hasn't been recently.

 _Take your tags,_ she silently begs Lee. _Draw her out somewhere quiet. Deal with this in private._ But she doesn't say it aloud; she knows better.

Then Starbuck's tags go in the box, and Lee's follow after, and Dee rolls her head back in exasperation.

Then the Admiral gets up and calls for Chief.

 

* * *

 

Dee remembers standing next to Lee at the riverside, giddy with excitement and disbelief. Everything had gone so fast, she hadn't had time to think. All she'd known was the steady certainty in her bones, deep down past the whirl of butterflies, and the heady feeling that they were getting away with something unexpected and serendipitous and _right._

She remembers the priestess giving them the Gods' blessing, and leaning in to kiss her newly-minted husband.

 

* * *

 

The Admiral – Dee's father-in-law – stands in the middle of the ring, blood streaking crimson curtains down his cheeks, and he speaks past the gore and the sweat and the spit to those clustered around the ring. He talks about letting people get too close. About letting down their guards, and letting things fall apart.

Dee sees Sam in the crowd, and she can't tell if he's watching her, or Kara taping up her hands a few feet away.

Either way, Dee has to look away.

 

* * *

 

Sam had showed them where he and Kara had wanted to build their home on New Caprica. Dee had listened to their plans, only half following along. She'd settled in the center of the space with her head tipped back, watching the stars and listening to the sound of his voice building invisible walls around the four of them.

“So do you know where home is?” Kara had asked, dropping to the sand beside Dee and stealing a corner of the blanket to wrap around her own shoulders. She'd had a bottle in her hand, but it'd been a mostly-empty prop by that point.

“I was crap at astrometrics,” Dee had replied, “even before we took a billion jumps and you got me drunk on an _alien planet._ ”

Starbuck had shaken her head. “Not the Colonies,” she'd said. “ _Home._ ”

She means Galactica. “Oh,” Dee had said, squinting up at the stars. “It's in geosynchronous orbit up there somewhere, but... nope, still drunk.”

“Hmm...” Kara had rested her head against Dee's shoulder, looking up. In the background, Dee could hear Sam and Lee arguing about room layouts and heat conservation. As if either of them knew anything about _building a house._ They’d drawn lines in the sand with fallen branches, only to erase them and draw them in again in different configurations. “Do you ever think about it, about home before the attacks?”

Dee had assumed Kara was still talking about Galactica.

“Sometimes,” she'd said. “Not much to remember, standard patrols, milk runs, diplomatic visits...”

 _“I_ remember,” Kara had said, looping her elbow around Dee's and gesturing expansively with the hand holding the bottle, “how every pilot onboard had a crush on you within a month of your arrival.”

That had made Dee laugh, louder than she'd expected. “Oh my gods, not _all_ of them.”

“Every single one of us,” Kara confirmed. “You were the voice that guided us, out there in the black. Like Galactica herself, calling us home.”

Dee had covered her face with her free hand, face burning. “Oh my _gods._ ”

“What are you two gossiping about?” Lee had dropped into the sand beside Dee, looking flushed and dizzy from pacing circles around and around. He reaches for the bottle, but Starbuck keeps it out of his reach. On Kara’s other side, Sam flops down onto the ground, collapsing back onto his elbows, similarly winded.

“How your girlfriend is _irresistible,_ ” Kara had said, taking a triumphant, taunting swig from the bottle.

“Which one?” Lee had asked, and Kara had _choked,_ liquor going everywhere. “I mean... which of us are you talking to, as in –”

“Oh my gods, Lee, you are such a frakking _dork_ ,” Kara had said while Dee had – barely – suppressed her own giggles.

“You should probably stop talking, man,” Sam had suggested from his prone position.

Dee had peered around Starbuck's back at Sam, a little surprised he's still coherent. “Yeah, you probably should,” she'd heard Kara say to Lee, and then she'd felt Kara _lean in..._

Everyone aboard Galactica knows about Starbuck and Apollo. There'd been a betting pool running almost as long as the Fleet has, likely unabated by Dee's newly-public status in his life.

So Dee had known. She'd _known,_ and she'd been bracing for something like this as long as they'd been together. Had played it out in her head a thousand times, from stabbing sorrow to cool indifference. And yet.

And _yet_.

She never expected it to happen as such close range, and not with Kara's fingers tracing light patterns on the inside of _Dee’s_ arm. She'd never realized just how good they'd look together, under the light of strange new constellations.

Dee had then made two decisions in the span of a heartbeat. First, she'd rescued the alcohol. She'd taken a healthy swallow and then passed it over to Sam, who'd looked... watchful. Wary. His hand had covered Dee's on the neck of the bottle.

She'd given him a slight smile just as Lee had jerked away from Kara, apparently coming to his senses. “Wait,” he'd said. “I didn't –”

“I thought you were going to shut him up,” Dee had said. “Maybe you didn't do it right. Here, let me show you.” And then she'd curled her fingers around _Starbuck's_ tags and pulled.

Kara had made a soft, muffled noise of surprise against Dee's mouth, then quickly got with the program, parting her lips to deepen the kiss. Her hand had slipped up from Dee's elbow to cup the back of her neck, and Dee had leaned back into that touch, tipping her head to give Kara a better angle.

“ _Oh,_ ” Lee had said.

“...yeah, okay,” Sam had agreed, pulling the bottle from Dee's grasp to set it safely out of reach.

 

* * *

 

The crowd thins out, after the Admiral and the Chief climb down through the ropes. Dee lets out a long exhale, dread easing the knot between her lungs.

“Hey,” Sam says, coming up beside her.

“Hey,” she replies, and lets herself rest against his shoulder, just for a minute...

“Where the frak do you think you're going?” she hears Starbuck call out, and Dee straightens, craning her neck for the source of the sound. Sure enough, Kara's perched on the ring, leaning on the ropes, staring intently at Lee.

“It's over, Kara,” Lee says, sounding as tired as Dee's ever heard him. Even as he says it, she knows it's a lie.

 _It'll never be over,_ Dee thinks. _Not for as long as we’re married._

Maybe she's about to watch everything fall apart for good.

 

* * *

 

“Hold on, hold on,” Kara had said, reaching for Dee. “Do you still make that noise –” And then she'd set her teeth gently against the sensitive inner skin of Dee's elbow, a sharp little bite that made Dee give a muffled squeak into Sam's mouth.

“Wait,” Lee had said, pausing from taking off his tanks. “Have you two _done_ this before?”

Dee had pulled away from Sam to answer, “Um.”

Kara had giggled against Dee's skin. “Uh huh,” she'd answered. “Don't worry, it was long before you got to Galactica.”

Dee had wanted to say something, but Sam's hands were _distracting._ “It was –” she'd gasped. “– just the once.”

“Or twice, or... wait, wasn't it like _six_ times? I lost count.” Kara had slithered up along Dee's back so that she could nip at Dee's shoulder.

“One _night,_ ” Dee clarified.

“. _..and_ most of the next morning,” Kara had added. _“All_ of the pilots had crushes on you,” she'd murmured into Dee's ear while Sam's mouth had started moving down. “But I got to you _first._ ”

Dee had laughed, tipping her head back to rest against Starbuck's shoulder. “Actually,” she'd said. “You didn't.”

Kara had gasped – possibly from something Lee was doing. _“No!_ Who was it?”

“Less talking,” Sam had interrupted. “Also: less clothing.”

“Agreed,” Lee had said. And then Dee had started losing track of who was doing what.

 

* * *

 

The crowd is smaller, but it's _feels_ louder, every scream of Lee and Kara's names adding to the tide of noise in Dee's head. There's no ref, no bell, and they're using the excuse to fight dirty: Kara using kicks, Lee using grapples, both of their faces set in fierce, determined masks. Dee watches, rolling her wedding ring around and around with her thumb.

Sam wraps his arms around her, and they lean against each other. “What are they _doing?_ ” he says into her ear.

“What does it look like?” Dee asks, bitterly.

“Looks like they're trying to kill each other,” Sam replies.

Dee shakes her head. “That's one perspective,” she replies. She hates this, _hates_ that they feel the need to do it this way, like making new wounds will heal the old ones. Sam sighs, and she hangs on to the steady circle of his arms as they watch Kara and Lee in the ring.

 

* * *

 

Dee had woken up the morning after the Groundbreaking Celebration, curled against Lee, and had blushed at the memories of the night before. Then she'd realized that they were naked in the middle of a field, and had hidden her face in Lee's chest.

“Hey,” Kara had said, shaking Dee's shoulder. “You up?”

“Mmrgh,” Dee had replied, flailing around for the edge of the blanket, some clothes, anything to put between her eyes and the sun.

Instead, she'd found Sam's bare thigh, and his warm, sleepy chuckle had sent warmth shivering down her spine.

“Hey,” Kara had said. “C'mon.”

“Where w'goin'?” Lee had grumbled.

“To the river,” Kara had said, her voice dancing with mirth. “To get married.”

 _“What?!”_ Dee had said, sitting up to squint in Kara's direction. Kara was crouched beside them, clad only in her tanks and underwear and miles of bare leg.

“Have you _lost_ your _mind?_ ” Lee had said, a moment later, his hands covering his face.

“No, wait, hold on,” Kara had said. “It's a _genius_ plan. Sam agrees with me, too.”

While Dee and Lee had gotten dressed, Kara had laid it all out for them, with Sam smoothing out the rough spots and even telling Kara to shut up while he took over.

“So it's a Starbuck Plan,” Dee had concluded, pulling on her bra.

Lee had laughed. “Pretty much.”

“Which means it's gonna _work,_ ” Kara had insisted.

Lee had rolled his eyes. “Okay, if – _if!_ – we say yes, then what, are we giving up Pegasus to come down here?”

“Not if you don't want to,” Sam had said before Kara could answer. “We'd visit each other, catch whatever Raptors are scheduled for supply runs. You two can stay up there, and we'll be down here, building the house.”

Dee had pushed aside her initial reaction, and propped her chin on her hands, staring off at the treeline. Never worrying about the specter of _Starbuck-and-Apollo_. Getting the best of both worlds: helping Lee run his own ship with a home on the ground to visit. She’d known some group and line marriages back on Sagittaron, and while she’d never considered it for herself before, she had known that it wasn’t about everyone being in giddy effervescent love with everyone else. It was about the practical things, like trust and respect and shared resources. About building a _family_ and foundation for the future. And if – _Gods forbid_ – anything should happen to one of them, the others wouldn't be left alone.

After everything, it had been the last that had clinched it for Dee.

“Okay,” she'd said, interrupting whatever the others were saying. “I'm in if Lee is.”

“What?” Lee had asked. “Really?”

Dee had nodded, and Starbuck had grabbed her hands, pulling Dee to her feet and hugging her fiercely with a happy squeal. “C'mon, Lee, whaddya say?” Kara had asked, turning to him.

Lee had looked at Sam, who just smiled, patient and steady. Lee had looked at Dee, whose grin crept wide across her face as she'd knelt back down at his side and had taken his hand between hers. “Lee Adama,” Dee had said. “Will you marry us?”

Something had clicked then, behind Lee's eyes, like he'd only just realized that they weren't all playing some kind of elaborate practical joke on him. Lee had looked back up at Starbuck. “Just because this was your idea does _not_ mean you get to be the boss of everyone here, you understand?”

“Is that a yes?” Kara had replied.

Lee had looked back at Dee. “Yeah, that's a yes,” he 'd said, quiet and sincere.

 

* * *

 

Lee lands a right that knocks Kara to the mat.

 _“Frak,”_ Sam says, flinching like he’s about to jump up there himself. Dee hangs onto him, keeps him close.

“No, Sam,” she says, resigned now. “Let them wear themselves out.”

Kara lifts herself to hands and knees, shakes her head, then looks sidelong at Lee. “She's done,” Sam says.

“No, she's not,” Dee says, and sure enough, Kara twists to send Lee's feet out from under him with a wide kick.

Dee looks away at the cheering crowd.

 

* * *

 

Dee remembers how quiet it was at the riverbank, the soft sounds of water and the wind in the reeds. She can't remember anything anyone said, not the priestess, not herself, nor the others that stood beside her.

All she can remember is Lee's smile, and Kara's, and Sam's as the ceremony ended. Kissing each of them in turn, Lee's familiar lips, Kara trying to turn the kisses dirty, the scratch of Sam's stubble.

The cheers of the small cluster of friends they'd gathered to stand witness.

 

* * *

 

The fight keeps going, but it seems like it might be nearing its end. Dee forces her hands to unclench a little from Sam's forearms. The ring looks like it's underwater, Kara and Lee wavering on their feet, all their motions a fraction delayed.

They keep swinging, though, faces unrecognizable behind the cuts and the swelling contusions.

Dee catches her breath.

And then Kara and Lee collapse against each other, an extended clinch that they seem to struggle against unsuccessfully. The crowd starts to thin out again, sensing that it’s over.

“I do _not_ envy you two tonight,” Hotdog says to Dee and Sam on his way out.

“Oh, you _so_ do,” Kat scoffs, following behind. “Don't even lie.”

Lee and Kara sway in the middle of the ring, slowly spinning on unsteady legs. Lee looks like he might be crying, but Dee catches a fleeting smile on Kara's face.

Dee exhales. “Lets go get our spouses,” she says at last.

 

* * *

 

“I was hoping you'd give me a daughter-in-law,” the Admiral had said, clapping his son on the shoulder. “I wasn't expecting _two._ ” His face had been creased in as wide a smile as Dee had ever seen as he'd offered his hand to Sam. “And certainly not a son-in-law. Welcome to the family.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sam had said. “I'll try to do you proud.”

“Don't say that,” Lee had interrupted. “He'll have you wearing blues in the CIC, if you're not careful.” He hadn't said 'a flight suit,' Dee had noticed, which was probably for the best.

“Congratulations,” President Roslin had said, one hand tucked in the Admiral's elbow. “I didn't think group marriages were coming back in style, but it's nice to see the old traditions carried on.”

“Yeah,” Kara had laughed, “it might catch on. We'll make it look _good._ ”

 

* * *

 

“You look _awful_ ,” Dee says, gently blotting the blood and the sweat and the snot from Kara’s swollen mouth with a warm damp cloth. Kara grins at her, gruesome and unrepentant.

Dee wrings out the cloth into the sink and turns the tap to wet it again, glad the communal head was closer to the ring than their quarters; she can’t imagine trying to do this in the tiny private head attached to the quarters she shares with Lee or in the doubtless-crowded and noisy duty locker.

“I’d tell you how _you_ look,” Kara says, “but you told me to keep my eyes closed. You _sound_ like my mom, though.”

Dee doesn’t rise to the bait; even the Cylons know about Starbuck’s mother. “Stop that,” Dee says, “You’re breaking up the clots.” Starbuck winces as Dee cleans up the gash on her cheekbone, but she stays quiet.

Around the corner, Lee mumbles something. “Don’t talk,” Cottle grumbles at him. “You Viper jocks; if your skulls weren’t so thick maybe I wouldn’t be patching you up so often.” He snaps his penlight off and lets Lee close his jaw. “No cracked teeth, but you’ve got a nice assortment of the usual sprains between the two of you. Watch for signs of concussion,” he instructs, looking over at Sam, who’s watching intently by the wall with his arms crossed. “Keep that hand wrapped up,” Cottle tells Lee, then says to Kara, “and stay off that knee. You know the drill: rest, ice, compression, elevation.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kara mutters.

“Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to check on the Admiral. If I thought it’d stick, you’d all be off duty for a month.” Cottle snaps up his case and exchanges rueful smiles with Dee on his way out.

“Ow!” Lee says, and Dee sees Sam holding a coolpack against Lee’s temple.

“We should hose you two down,” Sam says, wrinkling his nose. “You are not getting into bed like this, either of you.”

Starbuck grins again. “Gonna help us out with that?”

“You just do _not_ know when to quit,” Lee says, already standing and gingerly pulling at his tanks.

Sam pushes Lee’s bandaged hand away. “She’s got a point,” he says, “you two can barely stand.” And he helps Lee out of his clothes, the two of them careful of Lee’s injuries but comfortable within each other’s space. Dee watches for a moment, feeling something warm unfurl behind her ribs. It’s something she hasn’t noticed before, something she’s pretty sure wasn’t there before she sent Sam back to Galactica.

It doesn’t make up for anything else they’ve been through since, but it’s something to be grateful for regardless.

After that brief reverie, she follows Sam’s lead and helps Kara undress. Dee swats Kara’s hands away when she tries to return the favor, and steps out of arm’s reach to strip herself efficiently. Sam shoves Lee towards the showers, and ducks under Kara’s arm to help her limp after Lee. Dee gathers up their clothes. Sticky, drying blood from Lee’s shirts streaks her palms; her fingers catch on a tear at Kara’s waistband.

Dee shakes her head, stuffs the worst items into the cycler, and follows the others to the showers.

For all Starbuck’s posturing, she’s surprisingly biddable once she’s settled on the bench in the corner. She lets Sam pull down the showerhead to rinse the sweat and grime from her body. Lee stoops a little to let Dee wash his hair, keeping his injured hand out of the water. They’re both covered in bruises that bloom in mottled colors beneath their pale skin, swelling purples and blacks and reds that make Dee wince to see them.

By mutual unspoken agreement, they keep it quick, but Lee still needs to put a steadying arm over Dee’s shoulders as they leave. They must look ridiculous as they make their way through the hall towards the couples’ quarters, bedraggled and wincing, limping and wearing a mix of each others’ clothing and towels streaked with pink.

While Sam folds down the couch with the ease of practice, Dee digs through the closet for something Kara can wear. She finds the bag she’d brought back from New Caprica in the back corner, forgotten and unopened. “Oh,” she says, and drags it out.

She brushes the sand off and opens it up, pulling out the bundle of soft blue cloth and Sam’s folded jersey. “These are yours,” she says, handing the blue to Kara.

Kara blinks down at it, pulling the cloth open to reveal the small statues. Artemis and Aphrodite. “Oh,” she echoes, voice quiet. “Dee, I – _Thank you._ ” And Dee kneels up, touching her forehead lightly against Kara’s in a quiet, wordless moment.

There’s the loud screech of Sam dragging the open couch into place, and Dee turns away again to find some clean clothes for Kara to sleep in. “Hey,” Sam says, his hand settling warm and low on her back.

“Hey,” Dee says, and leans into his touch for a moment. “You forgot something,” she says, and gives him his jersey.

“Nah,” he says. “I knew you were keeping it safe.” They share a smile, a kiss, and move back to help the other two settle into bed.

Kara takes her usual place, curled on her side with her back to the wall. Sam crawls in next, knocking his knee against the edge of the main bed despite the folded blanket they use to disguise the slight height difference between mattresses. Dee curls up on the other side of the divide with her back to the door, leaving the outermost spot for Lee so that he can be up first in case of emergency.

In the dark, they’re a matched set of quotation marks, hands tangling in the space between. Dee lets out a breath; as she does so, a weight lifts from her chest and she feels tears prick at her eyelids. They fall silently, tracking sideways into her hairline, and sleep creeps in to claim her swiftly after.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

\- End of the first story in this series _._ TBC in the sequel, _Occultation._ -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also owe some credit to the BSG recaps by Jacob over on Television Without Pity for a few of the lines/ideas in this chapter, namely the bit about "all the pilots [being]...a little bit in love with Dualla," due to her being "the voice of home, out in the black." Also the line "Even the Cylons know about [Starbuck's] mom."
> 
> He probably would not like this fanfic (in fact, I am like 100% sure that he is not a fan of fanfic _at all,_ which makes me sad), but I am pretty sure he would be cool with me telling him that his recaps are inspirational.

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Knitmeapony for providing brilliant beta work and suggesting a few key lines and word changes that improved the whole immeasurably. Also for bravely facing down the comma hordes and emerging triumphant over their slain corpses.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mired](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6736948) by [Walutahanga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga)
  * [Written in the scars on our hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162532) by [redroslin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redroslin/pseuds/redroslin)




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